Abstract
In one of his meditations on psychoanalysis Wittgenstein asks why Freud’s significance as a psychologist is so closely bound up with his style. Far from showing a failure to appreciate the content of Freud’s work, the question rather reflects an appreciation of the importance of style, or form, for content. For what the psychologist says or writes must be recognized and acknowledged by the reader or the patient as being characteristic of his behaviour; the analysis will only be successful if the patient can identify with the mirror that is being held up to him. Obviously, this recognition by the patient depends on the way in which the therapist formulates, the extent to which he is able to express the content of his thoughts aptly.
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Notes
All references to the Nachlass are to the Cornell University Library microfilm version of Wittgenstein’s papers (made in 1967). I refer to the place of specific passages in a manuscript or typescript either by following Wittgenstein’s pagination or by supplying my own where Wittgenstein has none. In one or two cases only a date is referred to. For the designation of the manuscripts and typescripts themselves I have made grateful use of the system of reference devised and published by von Wright in his ‘The Wittgenstein Papers’ (1982), which originally appeared in the Philosophical Review 78, 1969.
Thus he writes in 1937:1 do not feel quite at ease in compiling my remarks’ (MS 118, p. 84). And there are more comments to this effect.
Like ‘The Wittgenstein Papers’, this indispensable article is included in von Wright (1982, pp. 111–137).
See Baker & Hacker (1980, p. 7, note 1) and Baker & Hacker (1985, pp. 3–4). Hilmy (1987, pp. 25–40) also breaks with the standard view, but his book confines itself to the genesis of the language-game philosophy and focuses almost exclusively on the so-called ‘Big Typescript’ (TS 213). My concern is above all with Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mind and I shall consult quite different manuscripts from Hilmy or Baker & Hacker.
Von Wright himself indicates that his historical outline is incomplete on certain points (von Wright, p. 112).
Von Wright might counter that he has limited himself to the most recent sources of the Philosophical Investigations, as he also says on page 131. Notwithstanding this restriction it is clear enough that von Wright regards recent sources as more or less primary and original sources. Thus he writes about the composition of TS 228: Then follow some 130 remarks from MS 129 (and one from MS 124), that is, from the period 1944–45’ (p. 128). Nor does he suggest anywhere else that MS 129 has a history, something he does claim for TS 228 (see further pp. 8 ff. of this chapter).
See Hilmy 1987 (pp. 25–39).
Von Wright says this himself (1982, p. 117).
See Hilmy (1987, pp. 34–35). Most of the remarks about philosophy in TS 213 go back to still earlier manuscripts.
In the preface to the Blue and Brown Books Rhees says of the period 1933–1936; ‘Philosophy was a method of investigation, for Wittgenstein, but his conception of the method was changing’ (p. viii).
See Baker & Hacker (1980, pp. 47–53) and also Bogen (1972, pp. 180 ff.).
See Hilmy (1987, pp. 98–107). For an early (1931–1932) but characteristic use of ‘language-game’, see also the quotation from MS 113, p. 104 on page 12 of this chapter.
But in this ‘chapter’ of TS 213 there are also a large number of passages about the indeterminacy of rules which have not been incorporated in the Philosophical Investigations.
Von Wright does not particularize, but the remarks concerned mainly go into the present paragraphs 398–411, which generally have MS 120 as their earliest source (see chapter 4, § 2 (a)). Other examples of fragments from TS 228 which have filtered into the ‘Intermediate Version’ are the present paragraphs 297 and 308. Most remarks in TS 228 deriving from MS 129 and MS 116 have earlier sources themselves. The history of two random examples is: Philosophical Investigations, § 297 (MS 120, p. 47; MS 116, p. 207; TS 228, p. 41), Philosophical Investigations, § 405 (MS 120, pp. 158 and 203; MS 116, pp. 157–158; TS 228, p. 34). 15 Mainly between pages 1 and 92 in MS 129 one finds most of the final sources for Philosophical Investigations, § 243–421. The manuscript is important because of the different way in which this part of the Investigations is composed. But it has little relevance to the history of fragments, since most of them have already been cast in their final form.
The first part of MS 116 (pp. 1–136) is a revision of TS 213. See Hilmy (1987, pp. 25–33) for a difference of opinion with von Wright about the period in which this part of MS 116 was written and, indirectly, about the importance of TS 213 for the genesis of the Investigations. MS 116 (pp. 136–264) mainly supplies material to Philosophical Investigations, § 664–693. Many of these fragments in turn go back to MS 120 (pp. 187 ff.).
Under the title ‘Ursache und Wirkung: Intuitives Erfassen’ in Philosophia vol. 6, 1976, pp. 391–408.
Wittgenstein closely gears this discussion to the ‘No ownership’ theory (see Strawson 1959, pp. 95–99) which he already describes in Philosophical Remarks, § 57 ff. Paragraph 398 is the extremely complex result of this equally complex discussion.
This manuscript is discussed at length in chapter 4, § 2 (a).
For a verificationistic and also behaviouristic interpretation of Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mind between 1929 and 1931, see my article ‘The Development of Wittgenstein’s Views about Other Minds’ (forthcoming) Synthese.
This notebook contains 94 pages and is written in English from page 70 onwards.
In this manuscript (between 16–5–1941 and 6–6–1941) Wittgenstein criticizes for the first time his own and Carnap’s logical behaviouristic construction of third person statements about other minds. See also my article The Development of Wittgenstein’s Views about Other Minds’ (forthcoming) Synthese.
See von Wright (1982, p. 130).
But Philosophical Investigations, § 257 and 353–356 do derive from MS 115 (see table 1.2). The section from TS 213 is called ‘Schmerz haben’ and is part of the chapter ‘Idealismus, etc.’. This chapter contains 19 fragments from Philosophical Remarks, chapter 6.
See note 17.
Von Wright suggests this (1982, pp. 115 and 134).
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Ter Hark, M. (1990). On The Origin of The Philosophical Investigations. In: Beyond the Inner and the Outer. Synthese Library, vol 214. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2089-7_1
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